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Thomas Kilpper
Krauts, 2020
Ink and acrylic on copperplate intaglio
32 × 26 cm
The artist Thomas Kilpper, born in Stuttgart in 1956, deals with political and social issues and often implements them using the traditional technique of woodcut and linocut. Many of his room-filling works are created in situ, at the specific locations of the respective events. In this way, they promote a very direct dialogue with history and our dealings with it in the here and now.
German history is a central thematic complex in his work. This also implies a confrontation with those responsible, i.e. with those who are endowed with power. In 2011, for example, as one of the artists of the Danish Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, he created a walk-in wooden structure with thirty-three portraits of politicians carved into the floor and a megaphone as a “pavilion for revolutionary freedom of speech”.
In the current series “Krauts”, Thomas Kilpper draws on the black and white works of the photographer Paul Swiridoff, whose multi-part photo book “Portraits from intellectual Germany”, published in 1965, is one of the standard works of this genre. Volume 3 brings together the leading politicians of the post-war period. With very few exceptions, it celebrates a society dominated by men, which, in its serious, state-supporting pose, shows little criticism of the dark past that was still very present at the time. Thomas Kilpper paints over their faces with concentric circles and other constructivist shapes and mostly restricts himself to the eye area. The people portrayed always remain recognizable to the viewer, but their exaggeration is counteracted and questioned by the artistic device.
